Marcos Chicot. © Novelashistóricas
After posting the world's best-selling ebook in Spanish between 2013 and 2016, The assassination of Pythagoras, the psychoanalyst Marcos Chicot Álvarez (Madrid, 1971) decided in 2009 to stop short after the birth of his daughter, Lucía, who suffers from Down syndrome, and to write the novel for six years The murder of Socrates, finalist work for the 2016 Planeta Prize. A work in which, unlike its best-seller, it deals with a more splendid (and also chaotic) period of classical Greece that perhaps was not so far from the West of today.
Marcos Chicot: «Socrates made the difference»
It is 14:30 pm at the Fairmont Juan Carlos I hotel in Barcelona and despite his fatigue, Marcos Chicot continues to smile, displaying the elegance that characterizes him among press officers and journalists. He asks me for permission to eat something from a plate of tapas that they have put on the table and he approaches forward, he likes the closeness.
His work, the finalist The Assassination of Socrates, is "a pleasant and rigorous novel about classical Greece", in the words of the author himself. A story that begins with the theft of a baby to continue under the background of the Peloponnesian War, a conflict that confronted Athens and Sparta for 27 years.
Actualidad Literatura: How do you feel?
Marcos Chicot: Apart from exhausted. . . (laughs)
AL: Aside
MC: I feel like on a cloud, I think exhaustion helps the dream feeling. I want to rest tomorrow and have a greater perspective, looking forward to the fact of living each day, each moment, reaching my followers with the book, with its messages, because now I feel it all in an unreal way. I want the book to be in bookstores, to touch it, feel it, to be told what they think.
AL: How is this new novel, The Assassination of Socrates, different from The Assassination of Pythagoras?
MC: This novel is more attractive for two reasons: one is Socrates himself, who a priori is more attractive than Pythagoras. He is an eccentric character, who attracted attention in Athens and who intervened in the life of his city. We have more information about him and, of course, about his surroundings. Pythagoras represented the Great Greece installed in southern Italy, while this novel is set in the heart of Classical Greece, the cradle of civilization, of the world. Socrates marks the birth and I would not say of philosophy but of evolution to those explanations about the sky or the water, for example, that the human being contributed. Socrates made the difference and said NO, the important thing is the man, so let's look for absolute truths. A way of thinking that makes him the father of rationalism and humanism, the father of philosophy. All that is born in him, and that is what defines us. In those decades in which humanism arises, a maximum splendor is reached in culture, painting, architecture, medicine also appears, literature, everything completely explodes. In addition, many other elements are born that are very modern today: the Olympic Games, the theater, the origin of things that we touch today and that emerged 2500 years ago with enormous similarities to those we have now. Discoveries that, for centuries, disappeared, with the Renaissance being the movement that rescued them until today. In short, it is our origin. And that is going to attract people.
AL: What is the most important lesson Socrates brings us?
MC: It is his own life and his own death, he was a person who did not give in at all, who was threatened with death by fighting and living for truth and justice. As a result of him, a very important movement emerged that marked us. What men have marked the way of behaving of men or to serve as a reference? You can think of Gandhi, of Jesus Christ for Catholics; in Socrates. His own teachings became a way of life.
AL: The Olympics, the theater, elements that man has maintained since Ancient Greece, but are there other aspects on a social or political level between that Greece that you describe and the current West that perhaps have not changed so much?
MC: Totally. There is a parallel that I voluntarily reflect in the book on the political situation. That was the first democracy in the world, they had no referents, but they did the same atrocities that we do today. It was an assembly where everyone voted, very pure. But as Euripides said, democracy is the dictatorship of demagogues. In the end they came, convinced everyone with their own passions and made terrible decisions. For example, the Peloponnesian war that is described in the book lasted 27 years and there were several ways to stop it through the use of the word, but there were very specific people who decided to continue with the violence because of their own desire for power, because of those passions. that they convinced others and that the rest, like sheep, accepted.
AL: And does that hold?
MC: Yes, politics is often driven by people with charisma, and unfortunately for negative reasons and their own personal interests. Therefore, in the end, the whole of society makes negative decisions for the interest of a few with great ability to move the most virulent and unthinking passions of the human being.
AL: You mentioned yesterday that you started writing this novel when your daughter Lucia, who was born with Down Syndrome, was born. Sometimes we tend to write about topics that may be more alien to us when, in reality, perhaps we also have our own or more personal stories that we can narrate. Have you ever considered writing a more intimate novel that addresses, for example, the relationship of a father? who writes and a daughter with a disability?
MC: Yes, what I have ever thought about is creating a novel set today in which one of the characters has Down Syndrome. That would allow me to show the realities of Down Syndrome, although I always try to show it in many ways. It would be a way of dissolving the prejudices that exist about them, showing their reality, that simple. That way life is much easier and society is more welcoming to them. It would be the best way to demonstrate it, creating a character with Down Syndrome that allows me to show information without having to stop to speak specifically about it, that remains integrated, intertwined with the plot. I have always thought about it, but also right now it may not fit with my most imminent projects.
AL: What advice would you give to those young writers who are preparing to write their first novel?
MC: Effort, perseverance. It depends on what type of novel it is, the process can be very hard, it is a sacrifice. That is why you have to be convinced that the fact of writing it will compensate you. If, in addition, the work becomes a success, then the additional components are already obvious. Seek satisfaction through writing, not success.
AL: And who would you like to present yourself to for the Planeta Award?
MC: Anyone who wants to write a novel and be successful with it. This is a trade and you have to learn first. Every time I read a novel from years ago and I see something that I don't like, I say to myself, great! Because that means that I am able to see that I could do it better and now I can do it. That must be very clear. Unless you are a Mozart of writing, in this profession it is normal that you have to learn. Run away from flattery and seek criticism. Then correct and correct until you convince the critics.
AL: What are you going to do with the award?
MC: First, Hacienda takes half (laughs). As in all my novelss 10% goes to organizations of people with disabilities. Then I will distribute what is left in three years until the next novel and pay the bills.
AL: What organizations do you collaborate with?
MC: Garrigou is the main one, since he collaborates with my daughter's school. Also with the Down Syndrome Foundation of Madrid. When my daughter was a baby I took her there and they received her very well, with physiotherapy treatments, speech therapy, stimulation; That's the best thing: stimulating them to develop their potential, and in the case of my daughter the evolution was spectacular. The affection they receive from the parents, which is an aspect that I work hard for, is also very important, because if the father is prejudiced with the disease, adaptation can be very hard and be subject to constant rejection.